Corporate investigators found evidence that Chinese hackers broke into an American telecommunications company in the summer of 2023, indicating the country’s attackers penetrated the US communications system earlier than publicly known.
Investigators working for the telecommunications firm discovered last year that malware used by Chinese state-backed hacking groups was on the company’s systems for seven months starting in the summer of 2023, according to two people familiar with the matter and a document seen by Bloomberg News. The document, an unclassified report sent to Western intelligence agencies, doesn’t name the company where the malware was found and the people familiar with the matter declined to identify it.
The 2023 intrusion at an American telecommunications company, which hasn’t been previously reported, came about a year before US government officials and cybersecurity companies said they began spotting clues that Chinese hackers had penetrated many of the country’s largest phone and wireless firms.The US government has blamed the later breaches on a Chinese state-backed hacking group dubbed Salt Typhoon.
It’s unclear if the 2023 hack is related to that foreign espionage campaign and, if so, to what degree. Nonetheless, it raises questions about when Chinese intruders established a foothold in the American communications industry.
“We’ve known for a long time that this infrastructure has been vulnerable and was likely subject to attack,” said Marc Rogers, a cybersecurity and telecommunications expert. “What this shows us is that it was attacked, and that going as far back as 2023, the Chinese were compromising our telecom companies.”
A representative of the Chinese government embassy in Washington emphasized in a statement the difficulty of determining the origins of hacks, and said the US and its allies have been responsible for cyberattacks on China. “The relevant party needs to stop using cybersecurity to smear and slander China, and stop spreading all kinds of disinformation about the so-called Chinese hacking threats,” said spokesperson Liu Pengyu.
